Rain + Saturday = Movies

I am not a big Woody Allen fan. As far as I'm concerned, there is something a little creepy about him so I'm not one of those people that rushes out to see his latest film. In fact, I will confess to you now that I have not even seen Annie Hall. Yes, I am a little embarrassed about that, but it's the truth.

However, I did see Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. So, I decided to give Midnight in Paris a try. The premise of the movie is interesting - a Hollywood screenwriter, (played by Owen Wilson) goes to Paris with his not-very-nice fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and her snooty parents. One night when he is walking alone, he finds himself transported through time to the 1920's where he meets many of his literary and artistic heroes: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway, Gertrude Stein, Picasso and Dali to name a few. He also meets a beautiful woman (Marion Cotillard) and of course, falls in love with her. The dialog is clever and often funny and the scenery of Paris is beautiful. In fact, it was so well filmed, I don't feel that I ever need to visit in person. Bottom line for me - you can wait until this one is available to rent, but do see it.

After watching our grown up movie, we went and picked up Viliamu for our regular Saturday date. We gave him a choice of seeing Kung Fu Panda 2 or Pirates of the Caribbean. I was grateful to find out that he had already seen the Panda movie, so Pirates it was. The movie came out a couple weeks ago and I was surprised by how many people there were in the theater - lots of kids, too. I guess they couldn't get in to see X-Men... Anyway, there were plenty of swashbuckling sword fights, narrow escapes, scary, dirty pirates and beautiful and deadly mermaids. Johnny Depp was his usual charming self, Penelope Cruz was smoldering, but for me the love story between the young, good-looking missionary and the captured mermaid was the best part. Even so, the most telling thing about this movie was that 15 minutes into it, Viliamu turned to me and said "Is it time to go home yet?" He was restless throughout and the movie was long. By the end of the movie, he was almost asleep.

When we were in the car on the way home, I asked the Wild Thing what his favorite part of the movie was - it's the first time he's been stumped. He finally said it was when Blackbeard disappeared at the end. I could have waited to rent this movie. If you are a fan of the series, you definitely need to see it - just don't take a 4 1/2 year old to see it with you.